Renita D’Silva Interview – A Sister’s Promise Book

Renita completed her engineering in Electrical and Electronics. She is currently working as a Tutor and an Author. Her short stories were nominated for the Pushcart prize and the Best of the Net anthology. Let us know more about her writing.

What inspired you to start writing?

I love stories and have always wanted to write. But it was only when my children started school that I had time to indulge my passion. I enrolled in a creative writing course at the local adult education centre. My stories were liked by the other participants and our tutor urged me to send them off. Many got published, a few won competitions and appeared in anthologies and a couple were even nominated for awards. That gave me the confidence to try my hand at writing a full length novel. I haven’t looked back since.

What did you like to read when you were a girl?

Anything I could get my hands on. I was a voracious reader (still am) and read and reread every single book in the ramshackle library in the village where I grew up.

What is the greatest challenge in writing a book?

For me, it is battling self-doubt, that voice in my head that says I can’t do it, that what I’m writing is rubbish. I have to fight it and keep writing, keep setting down the story that has been taking over my head on paper.

How much research do you do before writing the book?

Quite a bit. And the research is ongoing while writing the book as well. I am very lucky in that all the people I have approached (hassled, more like it), with questions and then even more questions, have been incredibly helpful.

What motivated you to write the book “A Sister`s Promise”?

I have always been intrigued by the relationship between sisters. There is love there and sibling rivalry too. What if something happened to test that bond, stretch it to breaking point? Would the sibling bond be strong enough to weather it? Would the relationship recover? These questions percolated in my mind. I imagined a woman picking up her phone and hearing her sister’s voice after a silence of twenty years. And it went from there.

How did you come up with the idea of writing fiction genre book?

I love stories, the world of fiction. So it could never have been anything else.

Who are your favourite authors?

Oh that’s a long list. How much time have you got J But if I had to choose, then, Harper Lee, Arundhati Roy, Hilary Mantel, Markus Zusak…

The list goes on and on…

How much time do you dedicate for writing on a daily basis?

I tutor kids at home while also looking after my own children, doing the school run and ferrying them to their various activities. I try and fit my writing in among all these other things. I am always thinking about my work-in-progress, so while I am doing all my other jobs, my subconscious is dwelling on the story, the characters growing and taking charge in my head.

What words of wisdom would you like to give to aspiring writers?

Finish your book and work and rework it until it is the best it can possibly be.

Research your publisher/agent before sending your book off to them. Make sure they accept unsolicited submissions from writers in your genre. It will save you a lot of heartache.

Don’t be disheartened by rejection. Easy to say, I know, but remember everybody gets rejected.

Believe in yourself. There will always be people who’ll not like your writing but equally, there will be many others who will.

Don’t give up. It only takes one person to say yes to publishing you and they might be the next person you send your work to.